"Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in."

-- Robert Frost

Thursday, January 21, 2016

living intentionally ... how to eat an elephant

New years are always brimming with hope and new promise. I love setting goals. I'm an excellent starter at just about anything. However, some goals progress, some lose steam, in the end almost all of them are reflected upon with a feeling of insufficiency.

These last couple of weeks, I've been evaluating some things I'd like to see in myself, my family, this life. The saying, "How do you eat an elephant? ... One bite at a time" keeps coming to mind.

Change can feel huge. A year's worth of change, possibly but not probably.

Monthly? Weekly? Daily? How about hourly? ;)

For me, 2016 is a year of daily intention. What do I want to see just today?

At day's close: A moment of evening reflection on the minutes where my intention was present with a brightness of hope that when I do feel the looming weight of failure, I'll see in myself even the very smallest incidence of the day's intent. And maybe, just maybe, that shift in perspective will lead to more.

My mind is like a sieve and I can remember very little, much less the fact that I even made an intent for the day. To help me out with a visual reminder, one of my girls made for me, an "intention" bracelet to sharpen my memory at it's notice.

And bite by bite, I hope to end this year ... this month ... this week .... this day ... this hour, knowing, it was quite possible, "good enough".

With one exuberant three-year-old climbing on my back at this very moment, I'm not sure if any of that makes real sense at all.

I rarely do these days.

Just the same, today's intent was to see the true beauty in every person I interacted with and so here's a bunch of pictures capturing the beauty of life as I see it right now.

1 comment:

Yes, you make perfect sense to this mom. Totally. Here is to seeing the beauty and being good enough. I am off to take pictures of my little people now (I know they won't be as spectacular and professional as yours, but yours made me want to capture the little giggles, and wrinkled noses, and all the joy that is stuffed into their little bodies!)